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Facebook is vigorously defending itself against a lawsuit brought by the attorney general of the District of Columbia—so vigorously, in fact, that it's basically claiming not to be a social network at all.

DC attorney general Karl Racine filed a lawsuit against the company in December, saying its actions related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal were in violation of DC consumer protection law. Facebook spent the last six months trying to have the lawsuit dismissed, but a federal judge in June rejected those requests and said the case should move forward.

Facebook therefore submitted its response to the complaint (PDF) this week, in which it denies "each and every allegation" in the lawsuit.

Many of the allegations in the suit (PDF) do allege wrongdoing in violation of law, and it's not surprising that Facebook would deny those claims. But its denial strategy is so aggressive that the company also denies several claims that seem to be basic statements of fact. For example, in paragraph 11, the District says:

To begin using the Facebook website, a consumer first creates a Facebook account. The consumer can then add other Facebook consumers as "friends" and by accumulating Facebook friends, the consumer builds a social network on the Facebook website.

Facebook also denies that it collects, records, and maintains data on users' "information and activity," though it does admit that "users can provide Facebook with certain information."

The company also admits that the application at the heart of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, thisisyourdigitallife, was downloaded and installed by 852 users in DC, but it denies all of the District's claims that the app "collected the personal information of users' Facebook friends—including more than 340,000 of DC's residents who did not download" the app. It also denies all description of how users interacted with the app and denies the assertion that "approximately 290,000 Facebook consumers in the United States installed the app," as well as the claim that "approximately 70 million United States Facebook consumers had their information collected by the app."

This may prove to be a less than ideal legal strategy, as the company has publicly spoken several times about these details, including in testimony from Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 2017.

Further Reading

In his written testimony for the committee, Zuckerberg said thisisyourdigitallife "was installed by around 300,000 people who agreed to share some of their Facebook information as well as some information from their friends whose privacy settings allowed it."

Facebook also admitted publicly in 2018 that up to 87 million Facebook users had their data "improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica."

Facebook concludes in its defense that "consumers were not deceived by Facebook" and "any violations of District law alleged in the complaint were caused in whole or in part by third parties."

If the court does eventually agree with that assessment, it seems likely consumers would be out of luck for redress, as Cambridge Analytica shut down and went bankrupt in 2018.

It's normal to just deny the entire lawsuit. It's not really denying that it is a social network or that it is called Facebook or any of the other random facts. It's basically just denying that it did anything wrong.

IANAL, but yes - anything they cop to in the pleadings is basically waived as an argument later on, so it's standard practice to deny as much as possible by verging as close to ridiculous as they can get without being completely untrue.

Facebook and cryptocurrency is likely the worst idea involving FB I can think of save FB and health records.

Anyone still wants to argue FB is not a dumpster fire because it’s the only way aunt sally Mae knows to keep up with little johnny’s pictures?

PS Zuck’s views on the Roman Empire deserve a piece of its own. Sociopath much?

I mean Augustus? Dude who outmaneuvered everyone else, leveraged Julius Caesar momentum, and turned the Roman Republic into Roman Empire? The Republic may have been deeply flawed, but anyone who admires a dictator over a flawed Republic is not to be trusted.

This is like Clorox company making bad sanitary wipes that spread germs far wider than they would have without it. Then calling themselves something other than a cleaning or hygene company.

Who the hell do you think you are fooling?

They are trying to fool the Congress and federal judges. Our 115th Congress average age are; Representative is 57 and Senator is 61. And they are among the oldest congresspersons in U.S. history. And based on our federal judges, they are up there as well. They are completely out of touch with technology and also lobbyists is encouraging Congresspersons to look other way. Look what happened at Zuckerburg in the Congress hearing, the majority of them don't get it.

This is like Clorox company making bad sanitary wipes that spread germs far wider than they would have without it. Then calling themselves something other than a cleaning or hygene company.

Who the hell do you think you are fooling?

They are trying to fool the Congress and federal judges. Our 115th Congress average age are; Representative is 57 and Senator is 61. And they are among the oldest congresspersons in U.S. history. And based on our federal judges, they are up there as well. They are completely out of touch with technology and also lobbyists is encouraging Congresspersons to look other way. Look what happened at Zuckerburg in the Congress hearing, the majority of them don't get it.

Your honor, we are simply a platform which allows people to network with others in their social circles and share various media of their lives. The fact that we had to use all the same words to describe what we do should not be used as evidence that we're a "social media network".

No. In 1984, the government set up omni-present surveillance of citizens. Orwell never thought the population would be so stupid as to voluntarily, even enthusiastically, submit to surveillance by a private company, which is of course subservient to the government. Why would a government force people to do things they will happily line up to do to themselves.

It's normal to just deny the entire lawsuit. It's not really denying that it is a social network or that it is called Facebook or any of the other random facts. It's basically just denying that it did anything wrong.

IANAL, but yes - anything they cop to in the pleadings is basically waived as an argument later on, so it's standard practice to deny as much as possible by verging as close to ridiculous as they can get without being completely untrue.

Ya, I don't know why so many people are downvoting me.

Maybe the edit? The article was really unclear about what they denied, and the link to their actual filing was broken.

The article says:

"Facebook therefore submitted its response to the complaint (PDF) this week, in which it denies "each and every allegation" in the lawsuit."

but then says " it does admit that "users can provide Facebook with certain information."

The company also admits that the application at the heart of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, thisisyourdigitallife, was downloaded and installed by 852 users in DC, "

Facebook also denies that it collects, records, and maintains data on users' "information and activity," though it does admit "users can provide Facebook with certain information."

Well i mean they dont collect it, they were given it and they just store it. They dont maintain it, the users do.

They absolutely collect user data. They collect it via cookies and through proxy information shared by a person's associates.

Even people who aren't on facebook have shadow accounts that Facebook uses to track that person. All of the data that's ever been collected via cookies and ad clicks, any information you've ever entered into a website that was then shared with FB, any time your idiot friends uploaded their contacts to Facebook, or however else Facebook managed to get ahold of a person's contact list (including phone numbers, email and real addresses), is all collected and cross-referenced into a profile of you, which they then use to try to sell you shit.

So they absolutely do collect data, they collect and maintain ridiculous amounts of data. What they will eventually refine that statement down to, is the additional phrase "without their consent" because you gave all those cookies and websites consent at some point, right?

No. In 1984, the government set up omni-present surveillance of citizens. Orwell never thought the population would be so stupid as to voluntarily, even enthusiastically, submit to surveillance by a private company, which is of course subservient to the government. Why would a government force people to do things they will happily line up to do to themselves.